The article develops a critical analysis of gendered narratives of global finance. The post-subprime crisis equation of unfettered global finance with the excessive masculinity of individual bankers is read in line with a wider gender narrative. We discuss how hetero- normative relations between men and women underpin financial representations through three historical examples: war bond advertising, Hollywood films about bankers, and contemporary aesthetic representations of female politicians who advocate for austerity. A politics emerges whereby gender is used to encompass a/the spectrum between embedded and disembedded finance, approximate to the divide between oikonomia and chrematistics. The apparently desirable ‘marriage’ between the state and finance that ensues carries several ambiguities – precisely along gender lines – that point to a pervasive limit: the myth of embedded liberalism in the imagination of global finance.

Wu, Joyce. 2011. “From Benevolent Patriarchy to Gender Transformation: A Case Study of Pakistan’s ‘We Can End Violence against Women’ Program.” In Men and Masculinities Around the World: Transforming Men’s Practices, 219–31. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.

Author: Joyce Wu

Annotation:

"Ending violence against women and promoting gender equality have long been on the agenda of Pakistani women and human rights activists. In Pakistan and many other developing countries, initiatives that engage with men from a profeminist framework is a relatively new concept, and more or less in sync with the shifting trend of the international development field, which has moved away from a Women in Development (WID) approach to a Gender and Development (GAD) (Lang 2003, 2; Flood 2004, 43-44). In summary, GAD focuses on institutional changes and the examination of gender roles and norms in relation to social divisions, as well as gender-mainstreaming in institutions, and a greater focus on men's role in contributing toward gender equality. In this context, the focus on engaging with men and boys to end violence against women (VAW) is becoming more readily accepted by international donors and partner organizations. Due to the security and humanitarian circumstances in Pakistan, international donors and NGOs have mainly prioritized disaster relief and reconstruction, though there has been an increase in projects that focus on men's behavioral change and ending violence against women [...] In this article, I will first examine the challenges faced by NGOs when engaging with local communities – especially men and boys – on the issue of violence against women in Pakistan. I will then provide the case study of Oxfam Great Britain's regional program, We Can End Violence against Women (referred as "We Can"), which engages with both men and women in local communities. Through We Can, I will illustrate the challenges of working with men and boys, as well as highlight the innovative approaches used to change the dominant norms at both personal and societal levels in Pakistan (Wu, 2011: 219-20)."

Viveros Vigoya, Mara. 2011. “Masculinities and Social Intervention in Colombia.” In Men and Masculinities Around the World: Transforming Men’s Practices, 125–41. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.

Author: Mara Viveros Vigoya

Annotation:

"The topic of masculinities as a problem in need of social intervention has arisen in Colombia alongside the development of investigations and publications of books and articles about men and masculinities in many of the Latin American and Caribbean countries. On the other hand, in the institutional circle, both nongovernmental organizations and existing Gender Studies programs at some Latin American Universities have incorporated the topic of masculinity into their policies and actions and into their academic programs.

"This growing presence of masculinity in research, university programs, and social initiatives tells of the importance of the transformations in gender relations that we have been witnessing in Latin America for more than 30 years (Viveros 2002). Thus, this chapter attempts to offer a panorama of the social interventions that have been made directly or indirectly with men in Colombia over the past decade and a half, which seek to increase gender equality in the different areas of social life (Viveros, 2011: 125)."

This collection, with contributions on seventeen countries from social scientists from Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, analyzes the characteristics and potential of diverse educational, political and related initiatives towards progressive changes in gender relations to show how men are reacting to contemporary social change.

Izugbara, Chimaraoke. 2011. “Poverty, Masculine Violence, and the Transformation of Men: Ethnographic Notes from Kenyan Slums.” In Men and Masculinities Around the World: Transforming Men’s Practices, 235–46. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.

Author: Chimaraoke Izugbara

Annotation:

"The intersections of violence and masculinity have been studied in a variety of social contexts (Bourgois 1996; Messerschmidt 2004; Mullins 2006). Missing in these studies, however, are grounded accounts of how a hazardous sense of threatened masculinity and notions of masculine dignity constructed around interpersonal violence become part of the everyday thinking of some men. Put differently, how does the belief that self-esteem, material worth, and possibilities for life improvement can only be realized through violence and ruthlessness become a key element of poor men's social and cultural outlook? Drawing on my fieldwork in the slums of Kenya, I link masculine violence to the dynamic association, which men make, between their private and shared marginalization and livelihood misfortunes and the everyday cruelty of others as well as the invasive belief that one has to both vigorously resist violence and deploy it in order to be safe. This disastrous sense of an inherently vicious world interacts dynamically with the lived reality of a constant state of emergency that interminably banishes men from dynamic access to public goods, to the realm of socioeconomic marginality, insecurity, and participation in drugs and other illicit economies that endorse aggression and brutality (Bourgois 1996; Groes-Green 2009, 2010). The current chapter is about the social production of violent slum men and the critical role of livelihoods in masculine violence as an everyday behavior deployed and suffered by poor slum men in Kenya. (Izugbara, 2011: 235)."

Genocide and Gender in the Twentieth Century brings together a collection of some of the finest genocide studies scholars in North America and Europe to examine gendered discourses, practices and experiences of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the 20th century. It includes essays focusing on the genocide in Rwanda, the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing and genocide in the former Yugoslavia.

The book looks at how historically- and culturally-specific ideas about reproduction, biology, and ethnic, national, racial and religious identity contributed to the possibility for and the unfolding of genocidal sexual violence, including mass rape. The book also considers how these ideas, in conjunction with discourses of femininity and masculinity, and understandings of female and male identities, contributed to perpetrators' tools and strategies for ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as victims' experiences of these processes. This is an ideal text for any student looking to further understand the crucial topic of gender in genocide studies.

In the interests of contextualising (and nuancing) the multiple interrelations between gender and poverty, Sylvia Chant has gathered writings on diverse aspects of the subject from a range of disciplinary and professional perspectives, achieving extensive thematic as well as geographical coverage. This benchmark volume presents women’s and men’s experiences of gendered poverty with respect to a vast spectrum of intersecting issues including local to global economic transformations, family, age, ‘race’, migration, assets, paid and unpaid work, health, sexuality, human rights, and conflict and violence.

Silence is a form of communication as multifaceted as speech and as such conveys a broad range of contextually situated social meanings. Often silence is understood as a form of denial and inherently detrimental to processes of reconciliation, but it may help create a sense of ‘normality’ and facilitate encounters between former foes. This article enquires into the role and meanings of silence as tacit forms of communication in postwar social processes and everyday life among people of different ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly as used by the displaced and returnees. It argues that in these contentious settings, everyday social interaction employs silence in ways that empower by communicating respect and even trust, thus forming and sustaining relations important to viable local life. Silence can be used to affirm family continuity and protect close relationships. Silent claims may also ‘speak’ from a marginalized position in relation to hegemonic narratives and make moral claims. Silence may thus be understood as a pragmatic and at times successful strategy for coexistence even when reflecting continued division in the larger society.

Through an exchange between members of community-based organizations that document human rights violations in northwest Colombia and northern Uganda, this article examines multiple strategies of memory making in which an individual or a collective creates a safe social space to give testimony and re-story past events of violence or resistance. In settings of chronic insecurity, such acts constitute a reservoir of living documents to preserve memories, give testimony, contest impunity and convey the meaning, or the ‘truthfulness,’ of survivors. The living archive disrupts conventional assumptions about what is documentation or witnessing in the field of transitional justice and introduces new interdisciplinary tools to the field with which to learn from and listen differently to survivors.

Public information and outreach have emerged as one of the fundamental activities of transitional justice mechanisms. Their objective is to raise public awareness, knowledge and participation among affected communities. Despite this increased focus, understanding of the role, impact and effectiveness of various outreach strategies remains limited, as is understanding of communities’ knowledge, perceptions and attitudes about transitional justice mechanisms, including their expectations. The study discussed in this article was designed to evaluate International Criminal Court (ICC) outreach programs in the Central African Republic. Specifically, the article examines how the public gathers information about the ICC and what factors influence knowledge levels and perceptions in relation to the Court. The findings show that mass media and informational meetings are effective at raising awareness and knowledge, but that the lack of access to formal media and reliance on informal channels of communication create a group of ‘information poor’ individuals. The authors suggest that outreach must be local in order to respond to individuals’ needs and expectations and to ensure their access to information. Evaluation research must be implemented systematically and on a continuing basis to assess how best to reach various target groups and develop innovative, responsive and flexible communication strategies.